Book Review – You Me Everything

You Me Everything tells the story of Jess and her 10-year-old son, William, and their summer vacation in France at William’s dad’s hotel. In an attempt to strengthen the bond between father and son, Jess agrees to spend the summer in the vicinity of Adam, her ex-boyfriend to give her son the father he’s yet to have and needs.

Amidst their vacation runs summer flings, dredged up pasts and secrets. Can Adam be the father William needs? Will the truth about the past be revealed? And can the secrets of the future change fate? It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s heart-wrenching.

So I was new to Goodreads only like 18 months ago and therefore like five years late to that party. However, I was there in time to catch wind of this book when it was first coming out. I added it to my “to read” list and later found it for $2 at a library used book sale. Steal!

Book 47:
You Me Everything
by Catherine Isaac

Genre:
Chick Lit, Contemporary

Published:
May 2018

Synopsis According to Mandi:
Without spoilers, You Me Everything tells the story of Jess and her 10-year-old son, William, and their summer vacation in France at William’s dad’s hotel. In an attempt to strengthen the bond between father and son, Jess agrees to spend the summer in the vicinity of Adam, her ex-boyfriend to give her son the father he’s yet to have and needs.

Amidst their vacation runs summer flings, dredged up pasts and secrets. Can Adam be the father William needs? Will the truth about the past be revealed? And can the secrets of the future change fate? It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s heart-wrenching.

Favorite Quote(s):

“Whatever life might through at me, right now, there’s this – I’m alive.”

– Catherine Isaac, You Me Everything

Awards (based upon my brief research):
None yet.

Pages:
368

My Overall Rating:
4 – I’ve been thirsty for a great novel – something fun yet meaningful – and this one made a great run at satisfying that thirst. Is it chick lit? Yes, I suppose it is, but it was so much deeper than summer romances, rekindled love and French vacations. It tapped into life’s big questions while making me laugh and cry and turn page after page needing to know more.

If I didn’t have two kids at home, I could have sat down and read this start to finish in two days. It was an easy read due to writing style, and a page-turner due to content. There were very few parts that I could have done without – parts that were too cutesy or useless information – yet those few are keeping me from my fifth star. As a whole, solid. Much more solid than I even thought it was going to be. I would put it on a similar level to Ask Again, Yes, but maybe more for girls than the latter.

Book Review – Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter tells the story of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s reaction to having an intellectually disabled daughter in the early/mid 1900s. Born into the rich and famous Kennedy family, the beautiful Rosemary had everything going for her… except her disability. At a time when disabilities as such were not well dealt with by society, the Kennedys did what they could to keep Rosemary hidden away for public relations purposes as they sought political power, even stooping to the level of having her undergo a lobotomy in hopes of “curing” her. However, they could not predict the outcome her life would have on their family. It’s possible her plight was not in conjunction with the “Kennedy Curse”, but rather a blessing to their family and to society as a whole.

Book Club’s November pick was another non-fiction. I wasn’t jumping at the gun for another non-fiction, myself, but I can’t say I was disappointed necessarily…

Book 46:
Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
by Kate Clifford Larson

Genre:
Nonfiction, Historical, Biography

Published:
October 2015

Synopsis According to Mandi:
Without spoilers, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter tells the story of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s reaction to having an intellectually disabled daughter in the early/mid 1900s. Born into the rich and famous Kennedy family, the beautiful Rosemary had everything going for her… except her disability. At a time when disabilities as such were not well dealt with by society, the Kennedys did what they could to keep Rosemary hidden away for public relations purposes as they sought political power, even stooping to the level of having her undergo a lobotomy in hopes of “curing” her. However, they could not predict the outcome her life would have on their family. It’s possible her plight was not in conjunction with the “Kennedy Curse”, but rather a blessing to their family and to society as a whole.

Favorite Quote(s):

“None of us can understand the ways of Almighty God—the crosses which he sends us, the sacrifices which he demands of us. But he loves us and He has a particular plan in this life for each of us.”

– Kate Clifford Larson, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter

Awards (based upon my brief research):
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2015)

Pages:
320

My Overall Rating:
3.5 – Ok, so this book made me cry. Rosemary’s story is so tragic. But also, I think I just read a 320 page research paper. I mean, I did. That’s exactly what it was. I struggled with the writing style, but the story was incredibly interesting.

Despite my 3.5, slightly above average rating, I would recommend this book because it challenges what you might believe about people with special needs. How are we to react to them? What is their role in society? What would this look like in my family? The Kennedys had the world at their fingertips and they still didn’t know how to deal with the cards they were dealt.

Book Review – The Water Dancer

The Water Dancer tells the story of the underground amidst America’s days of souther slavery. Hiram Walker, a slave with a mysterious power, loses his mother to the coffin of the deep south. As a family of sorts forms around him, he manages to escape to the north, becomes entangled in the underground, and must choose how to use the power he’s been gifted.

I swear five years ago I would have gagged at the idea of historical fiction with a fantasy twist. But… ever since I started reading so much, and since Book of the Month, I’ve become a changed reader. I’ve branched out, and I’ve learned to love doing so!

Book 45:
The Water Dancer
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Genre:
Historical Fiction, Fantasy

Published:
September 2019

Synopsis According to Mandi:
Without spoilers, The Water Dancer tells the story of the underground amidst America’s days of souther slavery. Hiram Walker, a slave with a mysterious power, loses his mother to the coffin of the deep south. As a family of sorts forms around him, he manages to escape to the north, becomes entangled in the underground, and must choose how to use the power he’s been gifted.

Favorite Quote(s):

“There was no peace in slavery, for every day under the rule of another is a day of war.”

– Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

Awards (based upon my brief research):
None yet.

Pages:
406

My Overall Rating:
4 – Confession – for the first 100 pages, I wondered if this was going to be a book that went right over my head. Coates was using figurative and colloquial language without giving explanations, and I thought for sure I was going to give this book a whopping one star.

And then things started to make sense.

And then things started to get good.

And then I could not put the book down.

When someone can take an outlandish concept and weave it into an already solid story and still keep me entrapped, I think that’s pretty impressive. Hiram’s power is crazy. It could not happen (though it arguably mirrors, and is meant to represent, the power of a greater One), yet it made this story better. Tales of slavery are already so heart-wrenching. I would have rooted for the characters without the fantasy element, but the fantasy element made me need to know what was going to happen.

Pages 101-400 were so redemptive of the first 100. Things came together so well and I began to appreciate the beauty of how it was written once I got over that hump.

Book Review – The Rabbit Girls

The Rabbit Girls takes place in the days revolving around the fall of the Berlin Wall as Miriam Winter discovers an Auschwitz tattoo on her dying father’s wrist. History is being written as Miriam must dive back into a different history and uncover the clues to her father’s past found in a uniform stashed in his apartment believed to have belonged to a “Frieda”. What happened to Henryk? Who is Frieda? And what does this mean for Miriam?

So if you have a Kindle and an Amazon Prime membership, you would be crazy to not sign up for Amazon First Reads. I don’t even know how I found out about it, but once I got my Kindle, I started stocking up on all the free books for my breast feeding days that have now begun. This next one, a solid pick from Amazon First Reads.

Book 44:
The Rabbit Girls
by Anna Ellory

Genre:
Historical Fiction

Published:
September 2019

Synopsis According to Mandi:
Without spoilers, The Rabbit Girls takes place in the days revolving around the fall of the Berlin Wall as Miriam Winter discovers an Auschwitz tattoo on her dying father’s wrist. History is being written as Miriam must dive back into a different history and uncover the clues to her father’s past found in a uniform stashed in his apartment believed to have belonged to a “Frieda”. What happened to Henryk? Who is Frieda? And what does this mean for Miriam?

Favorite Quote(s):

“Time fills in the blanks as we know them to be, rather than as they were.”

– Anna Ellory, The Rabbit Girls

Awards (based upon my brief research):
None yet.

Pages:
396

My Overall Rating:
5 – There are so many WWII novels out there, but I’ve learned that what makes one good, in my opinion, is a deeper element than simply the WWII story. Similar to All the Light We Cannot See or The Alice Network, this book has that element. The three main plot lines span WWII to the days the Berlin Wall fell. They cover characters in their youth and characters in their adulthood. They include politics, love, family matters, death and more. There was just so much in this book to take in, and it was so eloquently wrapped together and so well written.

I started this as my night-time-reading-while-breastfeeding book and finished it as an I-can’t-put-this-down-my-print-books-can-wait book. I can’t say I learned a ton on the history side of things, but the story offers a very unique perspective on concentration camps while only occasionally being too emotional to read in the middle of the night.

As I moved into my next two books, I find myself still thinking about this one and struggling to dive into 45 and 46 because 44 was so good.